Transportation
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How Will We Spend Fair Share Dollars? Competing Proposals Highlight Needs and Opportunities
Fiscal Year 2024, which starts in July 2023, is the first state budget to include Fair Share dollars, and the Governor’s, House, and Senate budget proposals differ in how they would spend Fair Share funds. How do their priorities compare?
Preventing High-Income Tax Avoidance to Protect Education and Transportation
Problems with potential high-income tax avoidance can be solved by following many other states that require that taxpayers file their state income taxes with the same status they use on their federal taxes.
Memo to Governor Healey on Ways to Ensure Effective Implementation of the Fair Share Amendment
As Massachusetts voters have amended the state constitution to include a 4 percent surtax on taxable income over $1 million, MassBudget would like to offer policy suggestions to assist the Commonwealth in protecting this revenue and ensuring that it is directed to education and transportation, as specified in the amendment.
ALL TRANSPORTATION REPORTS
A Bridge Too Far: Sagging Investment Leaves 644 Massachusetts Bridges Structurally Deficient
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation maintains a database tracking 7,880 bridges across the Commonwealth. This paper examines the condition of these bridges and the impact of bridge disrepair on communities. It analyzes how some regions and populations are harmed more than others, and how these problems could be helped by investing more public resources in transportation.
Brief for Amicus Curiae on the Gig Worker Ballot Question
MassBudget’s brief to Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court asking to dismiss the ballot question exempting gig companies from providing employee benefits and protections. The brief outlined how excluding these workers from labor protections and failure to contribute to social insurance funds for them would hurt these workers and more broadly erode labor protections and employment-based social supports across the Commonwealth.
PREGUNTAS FRECUENTES: la Enmienda de Parte Justa (Impuesto a los millonarios)
¿Busca información más detallada sobre la Enmienda de Parte Justa que se está debatiendo aquí en la Commonwealth? Consulte nuestra guía para responder a algunas de las preguntas más comunes sobre este tema y obtenga más información.
Investing in Transportation Can Help Massachusetts
This one-page summary of a longer report outlines how Massachusetts has underinvested in its transportation infrastructure, and greater investment can improve the economy, equity, and the environment.
Earth Day is a Time to Consider Better Responses to High Gas Prices: Free Public Transit and Other Ideas
Higher gas prices are causing anxiety for many and are eating away at the meager incomes of low- and moderate-income families. Politicians are promoting a number of ideas to provide consumers with some relief. A very popular idea—a gas tax holiday—is a bad idea.
Testimony on Employment Classification for App-Based Drivers
MassBudget stands in opposition to House bill (H.4375/H.4376), An Act defining and regulating the contract-based relationship between network companies and app-based drivers.
The Three E’s: Greater Transportation Funding Can Improve the Economy, Equity, and Environment
New sustaining revenue is needed for Massachusetts’ transportation systems, and no source of new funding is better scaled to meet the size of underinvestment than the Fair Share Amendment.
FAQ: Fair Share Amendment Edition
Looking for more detailed information on the Fair Share Amendment being discussed here in the Commonwealth? Check out our guide to some common questions about …
Testimony to end tax subsidies for purchasing private jets and other aircraft
To the Joint Committee on Revenue December 14, 2021 RE: Testimony in support of An Act Relevant to the Repeal of the Sales Tax Exemption …
New Federal Spending Makes It Crucial to Add State Funds for Education and Transportation
The federal and state governments act as partners to ensure high-quality education and transportation. In response to the COVID pandemic, the federal government has made …
Federal Relief and Recovery Funding and Massachusetts’ Transportation Future
Unprecedented Needs and Opportunity Families and businesses rely on transportation systems like roads, sidewalks, buses, and trains for almost everything we do. These are the …
Testimony to the Joint Committee on Transportation in support of free public transit and discounted fares for low-income riders
To: Joint Committee on Transportation From: Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center Re: Legislation for fare-free public transit and discounted fares for low-income riders July 28, …
Does it Make Sense to Collect Bus Fares?
Eliminating fares on Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and Regional Transit Authority (RTA) buses makes sense for practical economic reasons as well as for equity …
Free Buses Advance Equity
Transit fares deepen existing income inequalities and racial disparities. Transit riders tend to have lower-than average incomes, especially bus riders. Black and Latinx residents are …
The Dollars & Sense of Free Buses
There are many reasons to eliminate transit fares, especially on buses. In addition to advancing equity and reducing climate change emissions, fare-free service is more …
